How to fill a raised bed for free with Incredible Edible Shadwell

Anyone who has built a raised bed and then tried to fill it up with earth and compost will know just how much it takes, and how expensive it can be! But with a little ingenuity and a great relationship with your community, you can fill even a big raised bed for free, and with very little effort!

Many new Incredible Edible groups are daunted by having to find the funds to purchase compost for filling up new raised beds they install in community spaces. There’s lots of different ways to approach this challenge, but we love Incredible Edible Shadwell’s innovative ‘bring a bucket’ approach! Here’s what Alyson had to say about her group’s approach…

Where did the idea to ask the community to ‘bring a bucket’ come from?

Our veg beds are situated in a busy playground in a rural village. We are surrounded by people who garden at home, have allotments, are horse owners or are farmers. I am constantly surprised by the response when we ask for donations. When we built the initial two IE funded beds, people came forward to offer old carpets for path underlay, chippings for the paths, farmyard manure and soil. Soon after building the planned  beds we were offered old scaffolding boards for free, which meant we had perfect materials to build another large planter, but no funds to buy £150 worth of soil. So for bed 3, we decided to ask local people to ‘bring a bucket’ – a simple message requesting a small action.

We put signs up in the bed, and we have a Facebook & Instagram page – so shout outs went on the socials, and posters were placed on the community notice board and volunteer-run library.

We were unsure of the response, but over a period of about 4 weeks many buckets were brought. Some people told us they were bringing soil, compost, manure – others just dumped it in anonymously. Some took joyous photos of their buckets being added. I do think sharing pictures of people engaging with this helped – it let people see that their friends and neighbours were chipping in, so after a slow start – the pace at which new material was added increased.

Our idea was to make the request a quick, portable approach for people visiting the park, asking everyone to consider bringing us a small amount of spare soil as they were passing the space. The idea of a small action repeated by many giving us the desired end result – each time we visited the bed and more soil had been added, it was really uplifting to see people had engaged with a very new community project. It gave us hope and reassurance that the project was being received positively.

Our finances are limited, so this year when Leeds City Council agreed to us placing beds 4 & 5 on the existing site, we knew we could fund wood for the planters, but we only had money to buy soil for one of them. So we ran the bring a bucket campaign again. This time we had members of the local In Bloom group who donated excess soil and compost from village projects and some of their own home stash. Luckily someone close by was renovating their garden & had soil to dispose of, they transported it in bags over a few days – a win-win scenario! We also needed to move our own compost bin, and were surprised that in twelve months so much of the contents had already turned in to really great compost – that formed our base layer. The bed was completely filled within ten days, and this weekend someone has added horse manure, so we’re ready to plant. I think the bed was finished so quickly this time as we are now established, people know what we do, who to contact  and how they can help. I didn’t expect it to be filled so quickly!

Did you have any concerns about what might happen?

As with all community reliant projects, we did worry about this in terms of thinking people may not respond – we knew it wasn’t a massive issue if offerings were small or if it took time to fill the bed as we hadn’t planned for bed 3 and had the initial two to plant up,  it just meant planting this new bed would be delayed until we had enough soil – or funds!

Some of the soil was not great, a bit weedy, but as we raked over newly gifted mounds, we just removed any green things, stones, twigs etc. The horse manure isn’t as rotted as we’d usually use – but we just dug it in deep, and will ensure new plants are planted in to fresh compost so they don’t get burnt by the manure.

Were you happy with the outcome? 

We were really pleased with the outcome – both times! Asking for support offers people a chance to contribute in a small, simple way – and I hope it means that the community feel more connected to a site because they have engaged with it. I do think our location makes it easier to acquire useful materials for free – when we ask, people always come forward to help, or can suggest places to try to obtain items from.

The beds are thriving because people step up and help, they think about us when they’re having a shed tidy, and every contribution builds to make our space (& our community) thrive.